Swati Desai, Ph.D., LCSW

Dr. Desai is the Director of Integrative Psychological Services at the Akasha Center, Meditation Teacher, Psychotherapist, and a regular blogger at Huffington Post. Check her website www.swatidesai.com. To make an appointment with her or to talk to her, please email at meditate@swatidesai.com or call at (310) 308 9531.

Holidays are a time for increased attachment: to material abundance, to family togetherness, to vacation time, and to the fantasy of joy that comes with all of this. And yet often during and after the holidays, many of us expect to increase our visits to our therapists due to stresses, pressures, and disappointments.

There is a simple tool you can use to deal with the stress from the holidays: learn to mediate. The following is the list of reasons why learning to meditate, especially mindfulness meditations, could be an answer to your upcoming stress.

• Mindfulness meditation is an evidence based stress reduction tool.
• Mindfulness meditation is an inexpensive tool in which all you need is you yourself.
• Mindfulness meditation allows you to see the futility of over-attachment, which makes us expect too much and then experience the disappointment.
• Mindfulness meditation trains you to pay attention to here and now, instead of worries from the past or for the future.
• Mindfulness meditation helps you to stay away from temptations which can be such big part of holiday stress.
• Mindfulness meditation trains you to observe your own feelings and thoughts without getting engulfed in them.
• Mindfulness meditation allows you to enjoy the human connections much more authentically and with compassion.

At Akasha, we offer one-on-one meditation instructions to help you to establish a meditation practice and sitting meditation groups to help you to continue your practice. We also offer couples meditation workshop to help you to connect with your spouse in deeper way. Call Swati at 310 308 9531 for more information and to make an appointment.